


Making Christmas

by princessofmind



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Christmas, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-24
Updated: 2013-12-24
Packaged: 2018-01-06 00:01:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,751
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1100093
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/princessofmind/pseuds/princessofmind
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It’s not anything close to the extravagant decorations you know his parents use at home, but you did the best with what you had.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Making Christmas

**Author's Note:**

  * For [InkSkratches](https://archiveofourown.org/users/InkSkratches/gifts).



“This is a horrible idea.”

“No,” Feferi says, gesturing at you threateningly with a plastic candle. “This is a _fantastic_ idea. Such a fantastic idea, in fact, that I’m still proud of you for coming up with it. Even though you want to chicken out.”

Your eyes narrow behind your glasses, but you don’t stop untangling the lights that she’d shoved at you before turning her attention to the miniature tree sitting on the end table. “No, it’s a horrible idea, because this is going to get me kicked out. I’m pretty sure it’s a fire hazard or against one of the ten thousand regulations or _something_.”

“My parents own the place, remember,” she points out cheerfully, placing her candle along with three others on the window sill. “Besides, it’s only for a little while! They’ll understand.”

“Yeah, but the second you walk out of here, I’m fucking toast,” you grumble, abandoning your lights so you can keep a steadying hand on the small of her back as she climbs into one of the chairs back against the window, straining to carefully place command hooks on the wall right above. “I can’t afford to get kicked out. Again. Especially on Christmas.”

“Okay, that’s because his nurse is a prude and walked in on the two of you playing tonsil hockey before his evening meds,” she says, looking over her shoulder and arching an eyebrow with a smile on her face that makes you scowl even harder. “This is an entirely different beast.”

“Y’know, getting her to mind her own damn business for a couple hours might be a better Christmas present than all this,” you say, stepping back when she bumps you with her hip and hops down from the chair.

“I’ll see what I can do,” she says with a conspiratory smile. “Now c’mon, we don’t have much time. Move your tush, mister!”

You finish with barely five minutes to spare, and Feferi has to look both ways in the hallway before dashing through the door, offering one last encouraging smile as she disappears from sight. Part of you had been freaking out about cutting it so close, but the other part of you is glad, because more time freaking out about decorating is less time freaking out about this being a colossally dumb, overly sentimental idea.

But before you can psych yourself out, or call Feferi and pray that she still hasn’t left the parking lot so she can come back up, you can hear the telltale shuffle of slippers outside on the tile, and right about the time your fight or flight instincts start kicking into overdrive, the door opens, and Eridan and his nurse both look like they initially suspect they’ve walked into the wrong room.

It’s not anything close to the extravagant decorations you know his parents use at home, but you did the best with what you had. The ugly stock painting above his bed was replaced by a wreath, and the plastic bar on the side of his bed has been wrapped with green garland and a long strand of beads that look like snowflakes that glint in the white lights that are strung over the window and hang down almost to the floor. There’s more garland in the window, accented with small red bows and the artificial candles Feferi had been threatening you with. And on the table is the tree; not the real pine you’d wanted, but a small one that you decorated in shades of silver and purple. Not exactly Christmas colors, but his favorites.

There’s a moment or two of silence, where the nurse just kind of looks at you before what you think might be a smile creases her lips. “Call if you need me,” she says, squeezing his shoulder and heading the same way down the hallway that Feferi retreated down.

Eridan is still standing in the doorway, gobsmacked, and it’s hard to continue to feel neurotically anxious when you’re slugged in the chest with the same horrible, helpless feeling you always feel when you see him. Because while the two of you have always been the same height, he used to be broader, well-muscled from swimming year-round. But now he’s even skinnier than you are, practically skeletal under his pajama pants and t-shirt.

And you still aren’t used to seeing him without his hair. He was always so proud of it.

The hat he’s wearing thaws that feeling a bit, because it’s a soft, slouchy grey thing you bought him the day he shaved his head, and despite how swollen his eyes were from crying, he’d still smirked and said that he wasn’t convinced that you picked it out yourself considering how fashionable it was. Although, the tears glistening in his eyes _now_ are making you want to freak out more than a lot.

“Your family always makes such a big deal about Christmas,” you stammer as he slips into the room and eases the door closed behind him. “Like, your mom starts decorating at the beginning of fucking _November_ and your whole house looks like a Hallmark card. And since you won’t be able to go home for Christmas, I just. I wanted to.”

His arms around your waist quiet you, and you pull him close even though it presses his glasses against your shoulder uncomfortably. The feeling of his bones shifting so close to the skin still makes you ache with sympathy, but you just settle a hand on the small of his back, the other resting between his sharp shoulder blades as his bony fingers grip at the back of your shirt.

“Did you bring me a Santa hat?” he asks, voice wet sounding and muffled.

“Would you have worn it if I did?”

“Fuck no,” he says sharply, squeezing you just that bit tighter. As tight as he can manage. “Those things were awful and itchy enough with hair, I can’t imagine how horrible they would be on my bare fuckin’ scalp. I have a delicate constitution, y’know.”

“I do know,” you say, rubbing his spine and tucking your nose against his hat. It doesn’t smell like shampoo, but like his skin and cinnamon sugar. “I’ve had to help put lotion on your head enough times to be intimately acquainted with your delicate constitution.”

He laughs, even though he’s still dampening your t-shirt with his tears. “No one warned me about having chapped skin on my head once I lost all the hair.”

“No one warned you about a lot of things.”

Because sure, they’d warned you about how sick the chemo was going to make him. How it would make him lose his hair, all of it, and how it would drain his energy and make him nauseous and slowly, slowly suck the life out of him while you watched and prayed that he was as strong as you thought he was, strong enough to make it through. But there were little things, like the chapped skin on his head, how he didn’t even want his favorite food anymore when you tempted him with it, how sometimes he was too tender and sore for you to so much as hug, that no one thought to mention.

He was still here, though. Slogging through all of it and doing his best to not let on to how much he was hurting until he was bundled against your chest in the hospital bed, away from everyone else, and sobbing until he made himself sick. But even still, he got up and went to his treatments and took his meds and only complained about the things that didn’t really bother him.

Eridan Ampora was the strongest person you’ve ever met in your entire life.

“I just wanted to do something for you,” you whisper. “It feels like there’s nothing I can fucking do for you.”

“Dumbass,” he scolds, removing his face from your neck to scowl from behind his smudged glasses. “You come to visit me every day, no matter how busy you are. You always text or call to check up on me if you can’t be here by the time I’m done with my treatments. You complain just the perfectly acceptable amount when I call at two in the morning because I don’t feel nauseous and have a craving for french fries, which you always bring me.” His expression pinches, chin crumpling. “We’d barely been together a year when I got sick, and you’re still here.”

“Of _course_ I’m still fucking here,” you say, almost horrified that he’d expect any different. “And anyone would do that shit-”

“No, Sol, they wouldn’t.” There’s a moment of silence, where he just looks at you, lip trembling like he’s trying not to cry despite the fact that he’s already been doing exactly that since he walked through the door. It hurts your heart to think that he’s still beautiful like this, hat crooked on his bald head, eyes red and cheeks pink, streaked with tears. “It means so much. It means the world to me. All that shit you do, and this as well. I love it, you stupid asshole, so stop doubting yourself. I love _you_.”

It’s hard to believe that your flimsy decorating is anything worth loving, but his voice and his smile is nothing less than sincere, so you kiss him in lieu of spouting more self deprecating bullshit. The way he leans into it, loses his fingers in your thick hair and sinks further into your arms makes your heart stutter painfully against your ribcage.

“Love you too,” you murmur against his lips. “Love you too, Mister I should be in bed because I’m starting to shake.”

“Am not,” he says, even though you can feel the tremors and see them when he pulls away to frown again. “Okay fine, maybe I am a little. You have to lay down with me, though.”

Like he even has to ask. You fetch his sweater from the closet, helping him into it and then under the blankets, making sure he’s comfortable and situated before crawling in next to him. He’s laying on his left side to avoid irritating the port in his right shoulder, and you spoon up against him, pressing a kiss right behind his ear and smiling at how he absolutely melts.

“Nancy is gonna kick you out again,” he murmurs as you grin and nip at his neck and let your lips linger against his pulse.

“Totally worth it. Merry Christmas.”


End file.
